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Comment: A book with obvious wear. May have some damage to the cover or binding but integrity is still intact. There might be writing in the margins, possibly underlining and highlighting of text, but no missing pages or anything that would compromise the legibility or understanding of the text.

Published in 1994 to worldwide acclaim, the first edition of Jancis Robinson's seminal volume, The Oxford Companion to Wine, immediately attained legendary status. The book has won every major wine book award including the Glenfiddich and Julia Child/IACP awards, and Robinson hasa received writer and woman of the year accolades for its editor on both sides of the Atlantic.

Combining meticulously-researched fact with refreshing opinion and wit, The Oxford Companion to Wine offers almost 4,000 entries on every wine-related topic imaginable, from regions and grape varieties to the owners, connoisseurs, growers, and tasters in wine through the ages; from viticulture and oenology to the history of wine. Tracing the consumption and production from the ancient world to the present day, the Companion is a remarkable resource for gaining further appreciation for a beverage whose popularity has only increased with time.

Now exhaustively updated, this third edition incorporates the very latest international research to present over 400 new entries on topics ranging from globalization and the politics of wine to brands, precision viticulture, and co-fermentation. Hundreds of other entries have also undergone major revisions, including yeast, barrel alternatives, climate change, and virtually all wine regions. Useful lists and statistics are appended, including controlled appellations and their permitted grape varieties, as well as wine production and consumption by country.

Illustrated with maps of every important wine region in the world, useful charts and diagrams, and stunning color photography, this Companion is unlike any other wine book, offering an understanding of wine in its many wider contexts - notably historical, cultural, geographic, and scientific - and serving as a truly companionable point of reference into which any wine-lover can dip, browse, and linger.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"Serious wine geeks know that 'the bible' for the past decade or so has been Jancis Robinson's The Oxford Companion To Wine. The third edition...is impeccably researched and full of well-known facts as well as interesting trivia."--Wine Enthusiast.

"This is a must-have book for wine geeks...highly recommended for anyone with more than a passing interest in wine."--Wine Spectator, "Top 100" issue.

"It's hard to come up with a wine question that you won't find answered here... My advice is simple. Buy it. Now. You'll be glad you did."--Wineloverspage.com.

"An invaluable resource for serious wine drinkers who never quench their thirst for learning about varietals, appellations, wine history, and vineyards."--Business Week.

"It's as addictive as the Internet."--Tara Q. Thomas, Wine & Spirits.

"The third edition of The Oxford Companion to Wine, edited by Jancis Robinson, is the one essential book for any wine-lover... the book is a necessity for those in the wine business, and it offers highly pleasurable browsing for anybody who is remotely curious about why wine is so compelling."--Eric Asimov, The New York Times

"It's a valuable reference book and great fun just to pick up and read."--Ben Giliberti, The Washington Post

"Unquestionably the world's most comprehensive wine resource... Best of all, this isn't a dry encyclopedia... employs a witty insider's tone."--Town & Country

Named one of "20 Essential Books to Build Your Culinary Library" by the James Beard Foundation

A Financial Times 2006 "Pick of the Year".

About the Author

ASSISTANT EDITOR Julia Harding, Master of Wine, studied modern languages at Cambridge before becoming a freelance book editor. She took the Wine and Spirit Education Trust intermediate and advanced certificates and diploma in the late 1990s before going on to work in the Wine Buying department at British wine retailer Waitrose in 2001. Julia qualified as a Master of Wine in 2004, winning the Robert Mondavi award for best theory papers and the Tim Derouet Memorial Prize for excellence in all parts of the exam and dissertation. Now Jancis Robinson's full-time assistant, she was responsible for all entries on oenology and viticulture in this third edition of The Oxford Companion to Wine, and co-ordinated and copy-edited the new and revised text.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

No wine lovers' library is complete without the Oxford Companion to Wine. This is THE reference book for everything wine, quite literally from A to Z. Whether you are a wine novice looking to know more about a particular grape variety or wine region or an expert searching for information on vinification or the history of cork, you will find it -- quickly and easily -- in this book. Given that the book resembles and is organized like an encyclopedia, the annotations for each subject are written in a compelling manner. This is not a coffee table book. This is a book you will use again and again.

I have both this book and the Word Atlas of Wine (WAW). While both are very detailed, I find myself reading this first because of its more charming, easier-to-read style. After I've got a good understanding on a subject, I'll then mosey on over to the WAW to satisfy my wine nerdiness. I find that these two books compliment each other. For instance, I appreciate the WAW's detailed maps more after I've read the Oxford Companion's written description of a particular terroir. Either book would meet virtually everyone's needs and wants though.

The Oxford is basically the bible for wine. Very thorough and a great reference. This is *the* book. Just get it.

One comment about the reviewer who said, "A lot of money for a text book that is not a consumer's guide" - my reply? Duh. Look what you wrote - It's an encyclopedia, not one of the multitudes of consumer guides. Know what you are talking about before writing a review. As far as consumer guides, Oz Clark and Robert Parker both produce consumer/buying guides where you can look specific producers.

On another review, I mentioned that you need more than one book if you are serious about wine. But this is the most comprehensive work on wine I've seen, and one of the "must-have" in your collection. If you are interested in the ratings of specific wines or wineries, you need to get other books in addition to this.

Jancis Robinson, OBE, Master of Wine and a Briton, is the author of this huge wine reference volume. She, and many other wine experts such as Hugh Johnson, Robert Parker and Kevin Zraly, have devoted their entire lives to wine, the study of everything wine, and the writing about wine. This tome of hers is one of many fine wine books written by Ms. Robinson. My thanks and deserving admiration go to her. I am a part-time oenophile and have too many other interests to study only wine. On the other hand, I do want to know much about wine, balanced with proportion.

The best recommendation and endorsement for The Oxford Companion to Wine, 3rd Edition, published by the Oxford University Press, comes from the James Beard Foundation. Their list of the twenty best cooking/wine books includes this book. Go to "The James Beard Foundation, 20 Best Cookbooks," one of the most highly respected sources of cooking and wine information in the world. Also, go to: Amazon.com: 20 Essential Cookbooks

I find fascination in the history of wine, grape varieties, the various estates and domains, wine grape growing, vinification, the history of bottles and corks, wine tasting, wine cellaring, the wine regions of the world, pairing wine with food, and much, much more. I cannot find anything that Jancis Robinson has overlooked when it comes to wine. Her work is a cure for the fear of wine.

My Windows on the World wine course book, by Kevin Zraly, was my first wine book. Highly recommended as a starter book, excellent overview of wine and fun to read. But I eventually found that I wanted more detailed information to answer my wine questions, and to find answers to wine-related questions that would never have occurred to me to ask in the first place.Read more ›